. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/IP/15 
24 March 2006 
 (06-1353) 
Council for Trade-Related Aspects 
of Intellectual Property Rights Special Session  
 
  
SPECIAL SESSION OF THE COUNCIL FOR TRIPS 
 
Report by the Chairman, Ambassador Manzoor Ahmad,
 
to the Trade Negotiations Committee  
  1. This report on the negotiations on the establis hment of a multilateral system of notification 
and registration of geographical indications for wine s and spirits is submitted on the Chairman's own 
responsibility.  
2. Prior to the sixteenth meeting of the Special  Session held on 16-17 March 2006, the Chairman 
circulated, on his own responsibility, a list of prior ity concerns raised by delegations for discussion at 
that meeting. The five priority concerns were:  pa rticipation;  notification;  registration;  legal 
effects/consequences of registration;  and fees and co sts.  It was suggested that, in discussing each of 
these areas, the following issues might be explic itly addressed as appropriate:  the impact of the 
proposals on the principle of territoriality;  their impact on the existing balance of rights and 
obligations;  their impact on developing countries;  their impact on national systems/jurisdictions;  
and the issue of administrative burden.   
3. At the 16-17 March 2006 meeting, the Chairman first recalled that Ministers in Hong Kong 
had agreed that the negotiations of the Special Sessi on should be intensified in order to complete them 
within the overall time-frame for the conclusion of the negotiations that were foreseen in the Doha 
Declaration.  He further recalled that, at the TNC meeting of 6 February, the TNC Chairman had 
noted that there appeared to be a shared intention on the part of a ll Members to move ahead across the 
whole of the DDA, making progress on all issues, and a willingness to do so by moving "in concert".  He drew Members' attention to the Timelines fo r 2006 paper (JOB(06)/13), which indicated that a 
working document of the Special Sess ion needed to be on the table by July 2006.  This fully reflected 
his own assessment that, bearing in mind the end- of-year deadline for the Doha negotiations as a 
whole, it would be necessary to have, before th e summer break, a working document which could be 
used as the basis of the final product and in respect of which there would be a good degree of understanding amongst Members as to where the remaini ng difficulties to be resolved lie.  In order to 
achieve this by July, it would be desirable to have made progress in unbl ocking well in advance of 
that time the key difficulties that have impeded the work so far.  The Chairman's report of 
November 2005 (TN/IP/14), which was taken note of  in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, 
referred to important differences remaining on the tw o key issues of legal effects and participation.  
While recognizing that additional work would be required on a range of other points, including on 
questions of costs and administrative burdens for WTO Members, including for developing countries, 
that report noted that it would be difficult to make  major headway on these issues, together with other 
details of the mechanism to be established, without  greater convergence on the two key issues of legal 
effects and participation. TN/IP/15 
Page 2  
 
  4. At the 16-17 March 2006 meeting, the delegations  of Costa Rica and Nicaragua asked to be 
added as co-sponsors of the "Joint Proposal" ma de by Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, 
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guat emala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, 
Paraguay, Chinese Taipei and the United States in TN/IP/W/10 and Add.1.  
5. The Chairman noted that the discussion at that meeting was rich and focused on the priority 
concerns raised by delegations, and invited them to think further on how certain concerns or fears 
could be allayed.  He further noted that, in so me areas, Members were still far apart, namely on 
registration, legal effects/consequences of registrati on and participation, whereas in some others, such 
as notification, there seemed to be more common gr ound.  On issues such as fees and costs, more 
work would be required to clarify the issues and the differences.  
6. The next formal meeting of the Special Session is scheduled to take place on 
12-13 June 2006, back-to-back with the regular sessi on of the Council for TRIPS.  The Chairman will 
organize consultations in a variety of formats in the period prior to the June meeting, starting in April, 
to find a way of changing gear in these negotiati ons so that the Special Session is able to make 
progress on the issues that need to be clarified in  order to be in a position to produce the working 
document to be tabled by July. 
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